


time better spent

by floweryfran



Series: do me wrong, do me wrong, do me wrong [5]
Category: Fantastic Four, Spider-Man (Comicverse)
Genre: M/M, Spideytorch Week 2020, and i love that about it, and peter saying "no<3", for many words, i cannot fathom the fact that i wrote one in p's pov, spideytorchweek, this fic is johnny wanting to be functional, this was my favorite to write fjmxdbb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:28:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25533616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floweryfran/pseuds/floweryfran
Summary: Johnny moves his elbows out of chemical-spilling longitude. “How’s work going?”“Boring. Pass me the blue beaker?”“Mm, looks like Kool Aid. My day was great, thanks for asking.”“I didn’t, but okay.”“What did I do? Well, Peter, I went to my hot yoga class and looked very sexy while doing downward dog, and I reorganized my half of the closet to be color-coded because it was stressing me out, and I came up with a wonderful idea which will give us loads of happy bonding time to balance how many hours you spend pretending I don’t exist while you mix your magic potions and hocus pocus alleles all the way across town.”That gives Peter pause. He turns over his shoulder to meet Johnny’s eyes. “We see each other too much already,” he says. “We live together. You follow me on patrol. We spend half our time supine and naked.”“We’re going to pick uphobbies together,”Johnny says, and Peter cracks the beaker.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Johnny Storm
Series: do me wrong, do me wrong, do me wrong [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1848790
Comments: 29
Kudos: 133
Collections: SpideyTorch Week 2020





	time better spent

**Author's Note:**

> i’m begging you guys to understand before you read this that i’m not a doctor and i have no interest in being one so if the medicine is wrong i don’t give a single rat fart
> 
> spideytorch week day 7: free day! author's choice!

1.

“Hey, swamp ass,” comes Johnny’s voice from somewhere behind Peter in the lab. Footsteps—all expensive suede loafers against linoleum—then Johnny is wrapping Peter up against his chest in one smooth motion. Peter continues pouring ammonia into his beaker, too focused to fuss about Johnny breaking in yet again. “Baby. Barbara Streisand _._ Buddy. Baby Two: Electric Boogaloo. Australian Bushfire.”

“You know you’re not allowed to touch me in the lab anymore,” Peter says. “Elbows up.”

Johnny moves his elbows out of chemical-spilling longitude. “How’s work going?”

“Boring. Pass me the blue beaker?”

“Mm, looks like Kool-Aid. My day was great, thanks for asking.”

“I didn’t, but okay.”

“What did I do? Well, Peter, I went to my hot yoga class and looked very sexy while doing downward dog, and I reorganized my half of the closet to be color-coded because it was stressing me out, _and_ I came up with a wonderful idea which will give us loads of happy bonding time to balance how many hours you spend pretending I don’t exist while you mix your magic potions and hocus pocus alleles all the way across town.”

That gives Peter pause. He turns over his shoulder to meet Johnny’s eyes. “We see each other too much already,” he says. “We live together. You follow me on patrol. We spend half our time supine and naked.” 

Johnny groans. “Every minute your hand isn’t in my pants is a minute wasted.”

Peter really hates the fact that those words go straight to his dick. “Gimme, like, eight minutes to finish up here, won’t you?”

“No,” Johnny says sweetly. 

Peter huffs. “We started a chemical fire last time.”

“Because we have so much chemistry.”

“I’m going to punt you off a building one of these days, Hot Stuff.”

“I can fly.”

“Then I’ll—bury you in Prospect Park. X marks the spot.”

Johnny wrinkles his nose. “You can’t even give me the dignity of Central? By the zoo, maybe?”

“You’d choose to be that close to Avengers Mansion? Are you nuts? Hand me that yellow goop?”

Johnny does. “I think I deserve a real honorable send-off. A Viking funeral. Burn me on a pyre—that’s poetic justice. Make it a national broadcast. Let Gaga perform. She’ll clear her schedule for me; we have an understanding.”

“Hm. That dropper?”

Johnny hands it over. “You derailed me. Did you do that purposely? Did you purposely derail me, you—derailer?”

“Never.”

“We’re going to pick up _hobbies together,”_ Johnny says, and Peter cracks the beaker. 

“Oh shit,” he says. 

“Oh fuck,” says Johnny. 

The mixture begins to froth and foam spectacularly, giving off a greenish gas and a truly pungent smell. 

“Taco Bell farts,” Johnny identifies confidently. 

Peter grabs Johnny by the sleeve and pulls them both away from the lab table, taking off his goggles and mashing them over Johnny’s eyes. Johnny protests with a loud, “Hey, _idiot,_ you need these,” but Peter ignores him, bustling towards the switch for the sprinklers. He pulls it and cold water comes spitting down from the ceiling in droves, hard droplets pelting the top of his head like little shards of glass. 

“Ow,” Peter says, hunching, throwing his arms over his head and blinking heavily to soothe the sting from the fumes. 

Johnny hops onto a clean lab table, presumably to keep his shoes from flooding. “April showers bring Pete flowers,” he says. “I’ll be April showers if the flowers are a euphemism for sexy times.” 

Peter stares at him, his shirt soaked through and carefully gelled curls flattened against his forehead. He doesn’t even look cute. He looks like a drowned rat. He looks _so_ fucking stupid. 

“I can do sexy times,” he says. 

Johnny perks up. “Now?” 

“No,” Peter says, but he walks over to Johnny anyway. He runs his hands over his thighs and holds the bends of his knees gently, tugging him closer to the edge of the table. He nudges Johnny’s knees to spread them wider and places himself in the opening. His thumbs skim the sodden seam of Johnny’s jeans. He feels suddenly weird and tender—a fresh bruise. 

Johnny grins up at him, sharp and a little blinding. Peter thinks idly that he needs to put a hand over his eyes to shade himself from the light. He could burn from this, roast like a rotisserie chicken. 

“You should fuck me senseless,” Johnny says conversationally. 

Peter very nearly swallows his tongue. It’s a valiant showing of pure willpower that keeps him from dying on the spot. 

Johnny laughs, loud and buoyant, knitting his fingers around the back of Peter’s neck. Sly and a little preening, he pulls Peter down for a kiss. 

Peter tugs the goggles off Johnny’s nose—tosses them over his shoulder and ignores the crack and splash of them against the flooded linoleum—without pulling away. He gives as good as he gets, all warm mouth and soft tongue and the sharp nip of teeth. It’s not a dance so much as it is a pair of warring powers: Peter’s weak will versus Johnny’s pure charm. Peter questions the existence of Eros when he’s around Johnny. He never would’ve thought he could love this big without a pointed arrow up his ass. 

Peter pulls away sharply when he hears footsteps come pounding down the hallway. He’s back at his ruined lab table in the blink of an eye, scratching his brow in exaggerated confusion. Ignore what anyone else says about him. He’s an actór. 

“Uh,” Johnny says. 

“Shh,” Peter hisses just as the door flies open. 

“The hell did you do this time, Parker?” demands Inez, one of his favorite coworkers. She hates him. He loves that about her. It’s a complex relationship. 

Peter turns over his shoulder in faux surprise. “Oh, Inez. Hi! Just had a wee little accident. Whoopsies! I’m so silly.”

Inez isn’t even looking at him. She’s glaring at Johnny as he sits cross-legged on the other tabletop, grinning like the cat that chomped the canary. 

“You again,” she says. 

“Me,” Johnny agrees, wiggling his head. 

Peter rolls his eyes. 

“I thought he was banned from the building after last time,” Inez says, still not taking her eyes off him as if she fears the moment she does will be the moment he goes feral. 

“It’s after hours,” Peter says, burying his hands under his armpits. He must look like such an idiot, soaked through his lab coat and strategically hiding his enduring half-mast. 

“Clean this up before you go home,” Inez says, nose wrinkled. 

“Will do, Captain Jack,” he says with a jaunty little salute. 

She huffs at him—he’s probably imagining the fond glint in her eyes but a boy can dream—and then goes, letting the door slam behind her. 

Peter coughs a little then shakes his hair out of his eyes like a dog. “So what was our first hobby gonna be?” 

Johnny smirks wickedly. “Volunteer firefighting.”

Peter looks to the heavens, pleading. 

Johnny laughs a little and slides off the tabletop, all but sashaying over to Peter. He picks up the heavy fabric of Peter’s coat and tugs at it, his lips curling. He starts to remove it, hands gentle and just slightly too warm. Johnny’s fingernails scrape against Peter’s collarbone as he toys with the mouth of his Polo. 

Peter makes a weird choked noise in the back of his throat, his cheeks going hot. Johnny is gonna destroy him. “I really thought we were gonna get away with not reenacting the _Come As You Are_ music video today, but I guess I was wrong.”

“You were wrong,” Johnny agrees with a nod. “I wore nice underwear for you. I planned ahead.”

Peter gasps excitedly. “The blue ones with the—”

“With the little peek-a-boo, yeah.”

Peter’s groan is much more excited this time as he pulls Johnny flush against him, all soft curves and hard hips and raucous laugh. 

“We’re gonna get so busted for this,” Peter mumbles against Johnny’s lips, not that it stops him from struggling to work Johnny’s wet shirt over his head. 

“Rest assured: it won’t be nearly as traumatic as the last time,” Johnny quips, teeth grazing Peter’s pulse point. 

Peter laughs breathlessly, fumbling Johnny’s pants open. “Will it be as hot?”

Johnny pulls away enough for Peter to see the way his eyes flare orange. “That can be arranged,” he says. “That can absolutely be arranged.”

2.

Peter wakes up in waves. 

Consciousness is a tenuous sort of thing, he’s learned over the years. He’s more than familiar with half-awareness, wandering into lecture halls and labs and meetings at the Bugle with half his brain still tucked cheerfully under his covers. He’d like to be _that_ half all the time: warm and safe and comfy. Sleeping. He’d like to be _sleeping_ all the time. 

For just a moment now, he thinks he is. 

And then the waves keep lapping, and he keeps waking, and, ow, what the fuck? Ow. 

“Ow,” he says out loud for emphasis, “owie, oh, ouch.”

“Sounds about right,” crackles his most favoritest voice from somewhere close. 

He lifts a heavy, clumsy arm and uses his fingers to wedge an eye open. He grins goofily, pleased. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Johnny says. He scoots his chair closer to Peter’s bedside and picks up his hand, planting a kiss on the knuckles. 

Peter coos a little. 

“You look so high,” Johnny says. “How high do you feel? Is it good? Should I steal some of this stuff so we can stick it in a Juul pod?”

“Hmm,” Peter says. He rolls his head on his pillow so he’ll be closer to Johnny. His cannula pulls uncomfortably but he doesn’t move to fix it. He’s so assed. “Eighty-six.”

“Out of how many?”

“Hmm. Nineteenty-two.”

Johnny snorts, eyes shiny and fond. Now that Peter really looks at him—and, merciful lord, what a thing to look at—Johnny seems absolutely wiped: the way he does after going nova and floating down towards the street like a bit of loose confetti. All pale, like that golden writhing something under his skin has been tapped and drained out. Big bags under his eyes like a pair of plum bruises. Even the set of his lips looks tired. 

Peter wants to kiss it better. He yanks on Johnny’s hand. 

“I’m right here, dingaling,” Johnny says. 

“Closer,” Peter whines. He gestures with his head to the open spot between his bandage-wrapped side and the plastic railing on the edge of the cot. 

“I’m not gonna fit there. My ass is too incredible and your shoulders are too wide. I’m gonna re-break your entire right half.” 

“Huh. S’that what happened?”

_“Yes,”_ Johnny says. “You scared the piss out of me. Literally, I peed a little. It was so mortifying.”

“Aw, baby. Your first suit pee. It’s character-building. I’m proud.”

“Don’t be sweet to me right now. I could’ve died of worry with the faint scent of piss lingering in my pants and that would’ve been the most terrible thing you’ve ever done to me, which is saying a lot.”

“You can borrow my IV drip, if it’ll make you feel better.” 

“Oh, shut up. Scoot over, I changed my mind. Maybe you deserve to have me poke your ribs out of place again. Pop your new and improved kidney.”

“Like that balloon game.”

“What?” Johnny grunts a little as he helps Peter inch his very very heavy body to the far side of the bed. It’s like moving soup across the country with his bare hands. 

“Coney Island. Darts. Mm, we should go to a carnival.”

“Oh! I cannot believe you’re actually participating in my brilliant excellent hobby idea. Compliance? From my Peter Parker? Never. Is it just because you’re stoned? Probably. Whatever. I’ll take what I can get with you. Our next hobby will be training for a carnival date. We’re going to become world-class dart throwers. We can practice on Ben, he won’t mind.” Johnny settles in the open space atop the wrinkled blankets. Johnny was right: there’s totally not enough room. Peter feels like he’s laying on a bed of especially sharp nails shaped very specifically so that all the nails are directly underneath his right asscheek and flank. 

But Johnny turns his face towards Peter and presses a kiss onto his shoulder, so everything is okay. His heart goes all mushy and warm, and that lights a happy little glow on all his ouchies. It’s the Bob Ross of pains. 

“We’ll go to _all_ the carnivals as soon as your body doesn’t look like it’s melting.”

“Mm, melt. Tuna. S’mores. I’m hungry.” As soon as Peter says it, his stomach growls hugely. Like an angered beast. “Wow. Noisy. Shh,” he says to it. 

Johnny reaches over and pats Peter’s belly. Peter, again, puts on his best brave face and pretends it doesn’t hurt because he’s a strong boy. 

“Will you get me some ice cream?” Peter mumbles, turning towards Johnny through the countering slaps of anesthetic and white hot pain. He presses some clumsy kisses to the corner of Johnny’s chin. His lips pull stupidly and he’s probably drooling on him a little. 

“You’re disgusting,” Johnny tells him gently, as if this is news. “And you’re not allowed to eat ice cream. You’re on the broth diet, you dumbass.”

“I want… hmmm… cookie dough.”

“You can’t _have_ cookie dough. You were still pissing blood when your catheter came out thirty minutes ago.”

“Strawberry sauce!!”

“Oh my fucking god.”

“Mmm, ice cream. I love ice cream. I love _you._ Johnny, you’re gonna get me ice cream, right?”

Johnny huffs. “Of course I am. What, am I supposed to say no? Like a shitty, responsible boyfriend? No way. I’m gonna get you your ice cream and I’m gonna sneak it into your hospital room and then you’re gonna eat it, and you’re gonna have explosive diarrhea in your sheets and I’m gonna laugh because you deserve it but I’ll still be happy that you were, for a moment in time, content.”

Peter, eyes smarting, tugs on Johnny’s sleeve. “Hey, thanks,” he says, voice cracking. “You’re the best. You’re the best baby bubby bubba.”

“You’re drooling.”

“Do you still love me drooling?” Peter asks with a sniffle. 

“For some reason,” Johnny says, “yeah, I do.” 

Peter grins, something settling in his chest. “Oh. Okay. Cool.”

Johnny presses a kiss to the dip of Peter’s temple and clambers out of the bed, tossing Peter around like he’s riding river rapids on a wooden raft. He _oof_ s a little. Johnny doesn’t hear it. He’d have a conniption if he realized just how much pain Peter’s in: enough to make him want to swan dive into a river made of lava, Augustus Gloop style. He doesn’t know what exactly Reed has got him on right now, but they’re definitely going to have to reboot it. 

Johnny makes it halfway to the window, then stops. He turns slowly on his heel, a devious smile crawling its way towards his cheeks. Little dimples, narrowed eyes, all glimmer and gold. It’s Peter’s favorite smile in the world, save for Aunt May’s. 

“Hey, would the afterglow of a handjob make that ice cream taste all the better upon my glorious return?” 

Peter groans and starts to pull the sheets out of the way, wiggling stiffly out of his thin hospital gown. 

That’s all the invite Johnny needs. He laughs aloud, all bells and whistles and unadulterated joy, and clambers back onto the bed, kissing Peter so dizzyingly that he can hardly feel the pain any longer. 

3.

“Skating!” Johnny says proudly, arms spread out. 

Peter squints stonily at him from beneath the fold of his beanie, scarf tied over his chin and arms crossed over his chest. This is the first proposed hobby they’ve actually managed to pursue, and for all Johnny’s rhapsodic waxing about it, Peter is far from impressed. He had expected something warmer. He always expects warmth with Johnny. This is new, and also stupid. 

“This is stupid,” he says. 

Johnny pouts. “It’s so cute. It’s so trendy. We need to level up your Insta content of me. You always post stupid candid stuff and you always catch me looking like an _idiot.”_

“You look _beautiful_ in my Insta candids,” Peter says earnestly through a shiver. “Stop being such a mondo turd and let’s go do dirty things by a fireplace or something.”

“You’re so romantic,” Johnny deadpans. He holds his hands out. “Get on the ice, Webwit.”

“I’m freezing.”

“I can think of eighty-seven different ways to warm you right now, just off the top of my head.”

Peter’s eyebrows shoot up and his mouth pops open in a little _o._

“We can start on the list once we’re done skating,” Johnny continues cheerfully. 

“I loathe the very concept of you.”

Johnny does a wobbly little spin and holds his hands out again. “Come on, lover. Onto the ice.”

“Come on, lover, onto the ice,” Peter imitates in a squeaky falsetto, but he goes. 

He skates right past Johnny and starts on a lap, hands tucked in his armpits for warmth. 

“Hey,” Johnny yells. “Why do you _suck.”_

“That’s not what you asked me this morning,” Peter returns. He throws in a _hey-o!_ for good measure. 

He closes his eyes and lets the skates and his senses guide him. It’s easy: his balance is absolutely ridiculous and should be illegal, probably. If he can navigate the Daedelan heights of the city’s rooftops concussed and half-blinded with smoke, he can slip and slide his merry way across a man-made tundra with eight times that grace. This is all the crystalline hiss of the ice, the crunch of metal carving through it, the slush Johnny tends to cause all around as he stumbles. 

Not that Johnny is a bad skater. His balance has got to be as good as Peter’s from all that flying practice. His little aerial a(rsonist)ce. 

It’s just that Johnny runs warm enough that, when he stops paying attention, his skates go hot and start melting the ice in sharp divots that trip him up. 

“I can’t believe we’re finally doing a hobby,” Peter starts, coming up to Johnny from behind and catching his back, pressing his nose into Johnny’s neck, “and it’s the worst.”

“Your nose is like a frozen banana,” Johnny says. 

“Yum. Smoothie bowl.”

“You are—so overwhelmingly strange.” Johnny turns within the circle of Peter’s arms. The inch between them is just enough for Johnny’s chin to tilt up while looking at Peter, and for some reason, it gives Peter distinctly teenagerish butterflies. “Come on. Lead me like you’re my seeing-eye dog.”

“There’s something offensive in there somewhere,” Peter says, but he turns Johnny by the shoulders, wraps his arms around Johnny’s waist, and starts them off, stepping in time, gliding together. It’s all muscles and lithe movements and the fluff of their jackets; their skates clicking together and their bare hands stacked against Johnny’s belly and their scarves getting caught in their mouths. 

Peter sighs, feeling strangely at ease. He hooks his chin over Johnny’s shoulder. 

Johnny turns his head to plant a kiss on Peter’s cheek. 

They continue skating, Johnny humming something sweet and waltz-y under his breath. He’s terrible. Absolutely awful. Johnny can do so many things but singing is not one of them. Peter loves him _so much._

Peter switches his grip so they catch each other’s hands, him swinging around so they’re facing each other. That’s where they’re best: eye to eye, on even footing, sharing the same breaths between their stupid lungs. 

Their noses bump a little, and Johnny’s eyelashes are so white in the industrial sports lights shining down upon them. How Johnny broke into the ice rink at the Garden, Peter will never ask, but it’s sorta nice: so big and empty and harrowing, enough to echo. It’s gaping, but it doesn’t feel lonely. Not with Johnny here. 

“Can I suck you off in this empty hockey rink?” Peter asks, chest aching with something enormous. 

Johnny has his jacket off and his pants unbuttoned so quickly it seems like a miracle. “Yup. Yes. Okay.”

“Cool,” Peter says. “Now how do I go about kneeling?”

4.

Johnny frantically stirs a pot of something while Peter watches, ass out, chef’s hat on his head and wooden spoon in his hand. The apron over his shoulders is the only thing keeping his weehoo from drifting in the wind from the open window. His hair is all out of shape and his lips still ache from the firm kissening he’d received that morning, all bathed in that sharp sunlight bouncing off the buildings opposite. He’d expected the kissening to escalate into something particularly More. He was wrong. Johnny had hopped out of bed professing he had an idea for a new hobby, leaving Peter there with an uncooked yam between his legs and a bit of spit clinging to his lip. 

He’d been rightfully offended by that turn in events. 

His brain is now percolating. He thought skating was bad. Ha! He was so naive. So hopelessly dumb. 

“Spoon,” Johnny says, and Peter hands it over. 

Peter is here for eye candy. Johnny is cooking in four pans at once, and Peter can no longer identify any of the contents. 

“I thought the point of this was for us to bond,” Peter says. 

“Shh, shh, shut up, you’re breaking my focus.”

“I thought I was gonna be breaking something else of yours today,” Peter mutters sourly. Now he hasn’t even got a spoon to hold. What is he, Vanna White? The degradation he feels right now… unrelatedly, he should make a calendar for Johnny where every month is a new picture of him in something skimpy and stupid. Johnny would love it.

A pot spits and Johnny jumps in fear before plopping a lid on it. 

“Are you poisoning me?” Peter asks. “Because I would really like some advanced warning next time. I have five dollars in the bank and a pint of Phish Food in the freezer and I need to make sure both are left to Aunt May in the event of my demise.”

Johnny makes a loud fart noise with his mouth to shut Peter up. 

Peter takes the hint. He goes to sit on the counter, remembers the bare state of his cheeks, and stops himself. He groans and tosses his head back. Everything sucks. Hobbies suck. Why must Johnny be so realistic and active and kind as to include him in this process. 

A different tact of approach is needed. 

Peter squints at Johnny, who is squinting at a pan, gently shaking it by the handle. 

He leans forward over the edge of the counter, all slow movements and his eyes locked on Johnny’s profile. He cocks a knee, elbows on the marble, ass in the air. 

“Johnny,” he sighs. He tilts his head to the side. “Johnny. Hey, baby.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You didn’t even look at me,” Peter whines. 

“You’re being a dumbass, why would I look?”

“Because my one job today is to be eye candy! If you don’t give me the satisfaction, what is my purpose?”

“Your purpose is to annoy me, constantly, without end, you never stop, I don’t deserve this,” Johnny says, but he still turns from his pots to give Peter’s ass a little squeeze. “Damn. It does look good at this angle.”

“Thank you!” Peter says, validated. “I’ve served my purpose. Return to the kitchen, honey.”

“I’ll stick a sandwich up your asshole if you don’t stop.”

“You’d enjoy that too much.”

Johnny looks at him, nose wrinkled. 

“You wouldn’t enjoy that,” Peter notes. 

“Oh my god,” says Johnny. 

“I was joking,” Peter informs him. “I don’t want a sandwich up my asshole.”

“I’m so unbelievably relieved to hear it.”

Johnny turns all his burners off and gives each pan a final toss. He looks at Peter, then, brows low on his forehead and lips set. 

“Hi,” Peter says. 

“You need to eat the food first,” Johnny says. 

Peter pouts. “But I’m waiting here all pretty for you.”

Johnny closes his eyes and shakes his head a little. “You cannot understand the self-control I am using right now,” he says, voice cracking. 

Peter grins, spying a challenge in there somewhere. “If we’re done cooking…” he says, and he removes the apron in a sharp movement. 

Johnny grabs the countertop like his knees had given out. 

Peter stretches his arms above his head, groaning a little. If he’s going to do this, he’s going to do it _right._

“I,” says Johnny. 

“You,” Peter mocks. He leans his hip on the counter. “Are you gonna serve me up some sugar?”

Johnny, eyes locked firmly upon Peter’s genital region, says, “No.”

“No?” Peter repeats, hopeful. 

“No. You can serve.”

Peter stares at him dryly. “Skrull. Give me my Johnny back.” 

One of Johnny’s hands hovers in the space between them like a little paper airplane, wavering. Johnny drops it and mumbles, “No, I’m strong,” to himself. 

“What if I ask super nicely?” Peter says, voice going soft and low. He holds his arms out. “We can eat later. I’m sure it’s great. You’re great. This is great. Everything is great. Get over here before I bone the eggs, Johnny.”

“The worst thing is, I believe you’d do it,” Johnny says, but he finally—graciously—acquiesces, pulling Peter into his arms. His hands map the planes of Peter’s shoulders and Peter goes for his lips, all wicked teeth and tongue. When Johnny pulls away for breath, Peter whispers, “I need you,” and that’s the end of cooking, forever probably. They’ve got better things to do. 

5.

Peter is gonna _piss_ his _pants._ He’s never laughed this hard in his entire life. His breaths are wheezing like they haven’t since his asthma days, tears dripping down his cheeks, lungs aching something fierce. “Johnny,” he heaves, “Johnny. Baby. I love you. I love you so much.”

Johnny, standing in the middle of the gym with a baton in one hand and a long dance ribbon in the other, scowls. “I’m serious right now,” he says. “We could be like those sexy queer acrobat couples on America’s Got Talent. I even brought body glitter.”

Peter snorts helplessly, falling from his knees flat onto his stomach. His cheek presses into the springboard mat. Oh, sweet release of death. This is the best moment he’s ever lived. 

“You are such an asshole,” Johnny says. “An emotionally constipated asshole. Your deep-seated fear of the effeminate is causing this breakdown.”

“Breakdown?” Peter squeaks incredulously. He looks at Johnny once more, in all of his yoga leggings-ed glory, and loses it. He rolls onto his back, hands on his stomach, in physical pain. 

“Don’t give yourself a hernia. You won’t be able to do all the fun lifts if you’re complaining about your stomach muscles having a hole in them.”

“I’m—” Peter wheezes. “I’m. _Hehehehe.”_

“You’re my least favorite person,” Johnny tells him. “I put on a sexy outfit for you. Look at my thighs, Peter. Look at them.”

“Choice meat,” Peter manages. 

“Next time, we’re painting beetle shells,” Johnny promises. “Or collecting cigarette butts from the gutters and performing DNA analyses on them so we can charge their owners with littering.”

“Nooo, no, your hobbies are so fun.”

“You hate every last one, Peter.”

“But _you’re_ so fun.”

“But you hate our hobbies.”

“But you’re so _cute.”_

“I am. That doesn’t change the fact that you hate our hobbies.”

“I hate our hobbies,” Peter admits, “but only because they’re a waste of time that could be better spent.”

“Doing what such things?” Johnny asks. 

“Doing fuck such things,” Peter answers. 

“Oh,” says Johnny. “Hm. You know what? I’ve just done some soul-searching and found that I can forgive you.” The sporty tank top he’s wearing is discarded with frightening speed as he stalks toward Peter’s already-flattened figure. “I can—I can forgive you, and make something out of this.”

“Something?” Peter says, immediately sober. “Hm. Something could be interesting.”

Johnny kneels over Peter, all thighs and hips and beautiful hands, and Peter stares up at him utterly wordlessly. 

“Am I good for you?” Johnny asks softly, his weight relaxing onto Peter’s hips. 

Peter’s lips fall loose and he doesn’t bother to stop them. “You’re _so_ good for me,” he says, “oh, baby. You’re all mine,” and as tenuous and harsh-edged as his voice is, _they_ are not. They are monuments and wonders of the world and petting zoos that have stood so long they’ve become farmland. How long has Peter traced the curve of Johnny’s shoulder? Since sixteen and silent? Since twenty and angry to bursting? Since thirty and biting his tongue? 

Even bone and teeth were never strong enough to choke this back. 

“I love you,” Peter says, because Johnny is on top of him and it’s true. 

Johnny smiles a little, cheeks going pink with pleasure. Peter loves him flustered. “You too,” he says. 

“Hey,” Peter says. “Really. You’re—you’re the center of my world, Jay.”

“I cannot believe you can say such things now when you were laughing at me not two minutes ago.”

“I contain multitudes,” Peter reminds him with a smirk. He can practically feel his eyes gleaming, sappy. 

“Fuck you,” Johnny says, but Peter is now getting kissed, so he thinks he’s forgiven. 

6.

It’s as Johnny’s perched above him—Peter’s hands skimming up and down his trembling thighs, sweaty and bruised and red-lipped, utterly and desperately debauched—that Peter says, “I think I came up with a hobby we’d both be into.”

Johnny stares at him dryly, then unsheathes and waddles tenderly away. 

“I don’t mean sex!” Peter calls after him. “I mean a real hobby. That doesn’t include—whatever we just did.”

“Whatever it was,” Johnny says, returning with a dampened hand towel, “it was pretty good.”

Peter nods his fervent agreement, eyes heavy and limbs languid. Johnny wipes his belly for him, then leaves a butterfly kiss against the stripe of dark hair trailing downwards. 

“Thanks, Blondie,” Peter offers, tugging at Johnny’s curls to show he means it. 

Johnny’s answering moan is delicious. They’re both over-sensitive and strung out, and they laugh. Peter loves him so bad. 

Johnny, still smiling, pecks Peter’s lips before tossing the towel in the general direction of the hamper and climbing back onto the bed. He drops his head on Peter’s chest and finds Peter’s far hand, knitting their fingers together. He smells like sweat and smoke and sex as he pulls Peter’s wrist to his lips, kissing the spot where his pulse pounds. 

He’s always sweet, after. Slow. A little shy. Nothing like himself in the moments before—when he’s bold and desperate and so good for Peter. 

Peter would collect the different facets of Johnny like gems for Doug the Dog’s Curio Shop. He’d shine them every morning so they’d catch the sunlight and toss it across every room of his messy little apartment, painting everything brilliant and bold as Johnny is. 

Now, he settles for toying with Johnny’s fingers—kissing his knuckles and rubbing over Johnny’s neat thumbnail with the tip of his own bitten one—in the closed-window quiet. It’s just as good. 

“I don’t want to do your hobbies,” Johnny says eventually, voice light enough not to breach the silence. Petulant as ever. “You shit all over my hobbies. I put a lot of thought into choosing fun ones for us. It’s not fair. I’m not sharing my precious time with you anymore, if you’re not going to value it.”

“You just shared some precious _something_ with me, angel cake.”

“I’ll kill you,” Johnny says sweetly, pressing a kiss to Peter’s pec. 

“I’ll have died as I lived,” Peter says. He twirls one of Johnny’s pretty curls around his knuckle. It looks like a ring. “Defying you and covered in spunk.”

“Why, _why_ are you the way you are.”

“Mm, to annoy you.”

Johnny rolls his eyes but takes that as some sort of cue. He climbs out of bed—again—wearing an expression of staunch determination and exactly nothing else. 

“Hey,” Peter says, but whatever words he’d meant to say next are promptly slurped from his brain by the big vicious monster chilling in his stomach, who is entirely dumbstricken by the sway of Johnny’s hips as he walks. His back and shoulders are freckled, like spilt cinnamon. He has little dimples right above his ass. His thighs are thick with muscle and the way they brush against each other is hypnotizing. He’s _everything._

The bathroom door closes and the shower starts. 

“Oh, boy,” Peter says, and the image of Johnny’s shoulders fades into one of Johnny’s _drenched_ shoulders, soapy and sparkling under the water, and he hightails it out of bed to see it live in living color. 

-

It’s after, the both of them sleepier and sated and a little mushy, wrapped in their softest sweats and nursing late-morning mugs of espresso, when Peter tries again. 

“I really came up with something we’ll both like,” he says, uncharacteristically sweet, rubbing the top of his socked foot along Johnny’s shin. “There’s no effort involved. Just strategic sitting.”

Johnny squints at him over the rim of his cup. He looks like a little meerkat. 

“Come on,” Peter urges. He pulls out his best begging eyes. “Come sit strategically with me.”

“I’ll sit strategically with you,” Johnny allows, so Peter takes his hand and pulls him to the fire escape. It’s cool out, the air thin and moving and the sun direct and bright. Johnny’s nose wrinkles a little in confusion and Peter’s heart does something so fucking weird he almost needs to sit down. 

“So what are we doing?” Johnny asks, holding his cup close to his chest. 

“People watching,” Peter says softly. 

Johnny’s gaze locks on Peter and Peter matches it. “God,” Johnny says, “do you even know how much I love you?” 

And Peter thinks: they say Adam gave a rib. I’d be Adam, asleep, rib-giving, and I’d be an angel spreading dust over the topography of your body, and I’d haul stones across the desert until my fingertips bleed, and I’d be me and I’d be you and I’d love you big enough to burn the vitriol and vinegar from your veins. I’d love you big enough to smother nations in the pillowcase of it. I’d love you big enough to recount your molecules and make you something entirely new. I'd love you big enough to hiccup your name with mattress-shaking force. I’d do it, and I’d do more, and I’d adore you the whole way through. Your love burns me, bone in an oiled skillet, and it’s the most poetic pain I’ve ever acquainted myself with. You're my evil eye and my _cornetto_ and my voodoo doll and my tarot card and my sign of the cross. You’re the world built of carbon bricks and you’re my own fingers unraveling me with your face in my mind. I’d build for you, crush for you, come with your name on my lips.

And Peter thinks: I’d give hips more than ribs, I’d give livers and lungs and every angle of me, I’d make you of myself and make you mine in the same breath, and I’d make you _me_ and me _you,_ I’d taste your every inhale and make love to your every exhale, I’d mark every inch of our shared skin and turn you malleable, turn you mine, chew you up like morning vitamins and spit you out like evening tobacco, you’d be my every vessel bursting with blood and my every bone busting with marrow and you’d be _me_ and I’d be _you_ and you’d be _me_ and I’d be _yours—_

And Peter thinks: this isn’t a love for the movies. It’s a love for the history books. 

And Peter’s brain says, “No. I could never know.” 

And Johnny says, “Well. It’s a lot.”

And that’s that. 

They sit on the balcony passing a blunt Johnny finds in his sweatshirt pocket between them until they both taste sweet and singed, the flavor familiar and kind. The sun rides the horizon, and the city grows louder, and they watch. They point out the businesswomen, the bakery owners. They spit at a cop. They watch bustling mothers and fathers with their arms full and teenagers shouting curses into their cellphones. Birds sing, and the city stinks, and never, not even for a second, is it consistent. It writhes. It boils and rolls and corkscrews. 

The one thing they can both be sure of? Is that the other will be there through all of that. Rain or shine or skates or darts. It’s the two of them. And it always will be.

**Author's Note:**

> and with that, spideytorch week has come to an end! i'm cheesed, truly. 
> 
> i hope you all had as much fun reading this week as i had writing! i hope you found some fun new authors and content creators! i hope we got to see tons of great new art! playlists! edits! SO FUN.
> 
> thank you for sticking with me this week, you lovely people!! <33


End file.
